1. Technical Field
This application relates generally to delivery online of high definition (HD) video at broadcast audience scale to popular runtime environments and mobile devices.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Distributed computer systems are well-known in the prior art. One such distributed computer system is a “content delivery network” or “CDN” that is operated and managed by a service provider. The service provider typically provides the content delivery service on behalf of third parties. A “distributed system” of this type typically refers to a collection of autonomous computers linked by a network or networks, together with the software, systems, protocols and techniques designed to facilitate various services, such as content delivery or the support of outsourced site infrastructure. Typically, “content delivery” means the storage, caching, or transmission of content, streaming media and applications on behalf of content providers, including ancillary technologies used therewith including, without limitation, DNS query handling, provisioning, data monitoring and reporting, content targeting, personalization, and business intelligence.
While content delivery networks provide significant advantages, typically they include dedicated platforms to support delivery of content for multiple third party runtime environments that are, in turn, based on their own proprietary technologies, media servers, and protocols. These distinct platforms are costly to implement and to maintain, especially globally and at scale as the number of end users increases. Moreover, at the same time, content providers (such as large-scale broadcasters, film distributors, and the like) desire their content to be delivered online in a manner that complements traditional mediums such as broadcast TV (including high definition or “HD” television) and DVD. This content may also be provided at different bit rates. End users also desire to interact with the content as they can do now with traditional DVR-based content delivered over satellite or cable. A further complication is that Internet-based content delivery is no longer limited to fixed line environments such as the desktop, as more and more end users now use mobile devices such as the Apple® iPhone® to receive and view content over mobile environments.
Thus, there is a need to provide an integrated content delivery network platform with the ability to deliver online content (such as HD-quality video) at broadcast audience scale to the most popular runtime environments (such as Adobe® Flash®, Microsoft® Silveright®, etc.) as well as to mobile devices such as the iPhone to match what viewers expect from traditional broadcast TV. The techniques disclosed herein address this need.